1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a data storage system, data storage server apparatus, control method, and program for storing data on a server apparatus on a network such that the data can be shared among client apparatuses.
2. Description of the Related Art
One information service based on a communication infrastructure, such as the Internet, is a service that enables users to upload image data captured by a digital camera to a storage area on a server apparatus, and allows users to access the server apparatus to view uploaded image data at any time. A network service provider with such a server apparatus will be hereinafter referred to as “photo site”.
A case is described here in which a known photo site makes data from a user who uploaded the data (hereinafter referred to as “owner user”) available to a third party designated by the owner user (hereinafter referred to as “guest user”).
First, an owner user launches a Web browser on a personal computer (PC), accesses a photo site, uploads data, and informs the photo site of a guest user's name, email address, and the like. The photo site creates a universal resource locator (URL) for providing access to the uploaded data. The URL is an address unique to the data and is created, for example, using a table of random numbers uniquely unpredictable. An example of such a URL is as follows:                http://OOO.com/PhotoSite/Album/AlbumEntry.cgi?AlbumID=A JNWDMF        
The photo site sends an email message including the URL in the message field and the guest user's email address in the receiver field via the Internet. Upon receipt of the email message, the guest user launches a Web browser on a PC, enters the URL included in the email message, and is thus permitted to view the data of the owner user.
A problem of such a known technology is that since the URL is issued to each data, a different URL must be created for each data or a different email message must be created and sent for each URL created, if a plurality of data is made available by one or more owner users.
Moreover, it is extremely cumbersome for the guest user to receive many email messages and manage URLs issued to each data from the owner users.
To view particular image data many times, the guest user, for example, registers the URL of the image data in a bookmark in the browser to have easy access to the image data without entering the URL. However, if a URL is issued every time image data is made available, the user has to go though the cumbersome process of adding a long list of URLs to the bookmark. Moreover, every time an owner user deletes data from the photo site, the guest user must delete the URL for the data to organize the bookmark.
Furthermore, although the guest user can send a print order to the photo site for image data made available by an owner user, it is cumbersome to select image data and to configure settings, such as the type of paper suitable for the image data and paper size.